People v. Jackson

—Appeal by the defendant from a judgment of the Supreme Court, Queens County (Finnegan, J.), rendered October 19, 1998, convicting him of grand larceny in the fourth degree, upon a jury verdict, and imposing sentence.

Ordered that the judgment is reversed, on the law, and a new trial is ordered.

Defense counsel’s challenge for cause of a potential juror who repeatedly indicated that he needed to “hear both sides of the story” before making a decision was rejected by the trial court. The court failed to conduct further inquiry, and the juror never unequivocally stated that he could render an…